The young countess reached out and took Adair’s hand in her own. “You are kind, my lady of Cleit, but Iknowwhat my fate will be. You are King Edward’s daughter? Tell me how that came about.”
Adair briefly related her history to Janet Douglas Hepburn. Her companion was wide-eyed with fascina-tion, for it all, she remarked to Adair, sounded like one of those adventurous tales that the minstrels sang about. By the time she had concluded her story it was time for the meal. The earl came to escort his wife to the high board, where to Adair’s surprise she and Conal had been seated. But then, looking about, she saw that there were really very few guests. A servant had taken her long wool cape as she stood to repair to the high board.
Beneath it she wore a simple yellow wool gown with a high neck and long sleeves, each with a row of tiny buttons carved from wood and stained dark. About her hips was an embroidered girdle of cloth of silver.
“You look like a spring flower, cousin,” the king said.
He was seated at the earl’s right hand. “Come and kiss me in greeting. You have not done so yet.”
Adair went to the king’s chair and dutifully leaned down to give him a quick kiss upon his ruddy cheek, but James Stewart turned his head, and Adair was shocked to find her lips meeting his. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she sprang back before the kiss could becomesomething it shouldn’t. A swift glance told her Conal had not seen, and her sigh was almost audible.
“Another time, cousin,” the king murmured mischievously.
She laughed. “I think not, Your Highness,” she told him primly, and then sought the seat to which she had been assigned.
The earl had invited a distant cousin, Eufemia Lauder, an attractive woman with dark red hair and brown eyes. She had been widowed twice, and was delighted to have been chosen by her relative to be his guest and the king’s bed partner. Eufemia was a practical and discreet woman with no pretensions. She would satisfy the king’s lust with enthusiasm while he visited the earl, and not weep when he departed, or beg to know when he would come back. She would accept the gift he gave her with good grace, and then return to her own home. But most important of all, she was respectable enough to be accepted by the Countess of Bothwell and Adair. While Patrick Hepburn knew his king’s needs, he would never insult his wife or another woman by forcing them to associate with a woman of dubious reputation. The king did not have a mistress at the moment or else he would have brought her to Hailes. There were two other gentlemen in the hall tonight. One was the earl’s brother-in-law, James Douglas, and his wife. The other was the earl’s younger brother, Adam, and his wife.
The meal was good, Adair thought, but not as good as those of her own house, and that thought gave her great satisfaction. She was going to tell Conal tonight that she was expecting another child. They were here, and there was nothing he could do about it. Fortunately, other than breaking her link with the moon, she was showing no other signs of her condition. In fact, she felt outrageously wonderful. It was not like the first time, when she had been sick from the very beginning.
When the meal had been concluded they left the highboard and gathered about the countess’s chair by one of the hearths. The earl’s piper played for them, and the men danced together while the women watched from their seats. Finally the earl and the king sat down to play a game of chess. The other three men sat together talking. Adair was glad that they had come, and she suspected that Conal was too. He was laughing with the others, and seemed quite at his ease, though he had thought he wouldn’t.
A servant came and asked if she might show the ladies to their bedchambers, which Adair took to mean that the evening was over. She arose with the others and curtsied to the countess. Then the women followed after the serving woman, who brought them to a high floor in the castle and directed each lady to her own chamber.
The room was not large by any means. There was a small hearth, which was burning brightly. A tiny window was shuttered with a thick wooden shutter, and a heavy curtain was drawn across it to temper the wind that still managed to come through the shutter’s cracks. There was a large bed. A single chair. Nothing more; nor could anything else have fit within the space. Their saddlebags had been laid carefully upon the bed. Adair drew out her two new gowns, shook them, and laid them over the chair. Then she hung the bags on a hook that stuck out of the wall by the fire. Undressing quickly, she washed her face and hands in the basin that had been set on the edge of the hearth, and climbed quickly into bed to wait for her husband.
She was almost asleep when Conal came in. He undressed swiftly and climbed into the bed, reaching out for her. “I’m glad you insisted we come,” he said softly, and then he kissed her lush mouth, running his tongue around it teasingly. His hand reached out for her breast, which he kneaded as he spoke to her.
“I like the countess,” Adair said to him.
“Patrick is fearful she is going to die with the child,”Conal said.
“All first-time fathers worry foolishly. Fortunately, those with more experience do not. We’re going to have another bairn, Conal. In late summer.”
“You lied to me then,” he said, his voice tight.
“I did,” Adair admitted, totally unashamed. “I wanted to come. There was no harm in my riding right now. But you would have not trusted me to know myself, and then we would have fought over it. Neither of us would have been happy about the outcome, Conal. I can already tell that this is not like the first time. I feel strong.
The bairn growing within me is strong. Don’t be angry, my honey love,” she cajoled him.
“I should beat you,” he told her grimly.
Adair snuggled in his embrace. “Ohh, would you spank me?” she teased. Reaching for one of his hands, she drew it around her and placed it on her bottom, wiggling against the hand. “Have I been a bad lass, my lord?” she asked him in a singsong little-girl voice, rubbing herself against him in an outrageously provocative fashion. His manhood was already hard against her thigh.
“You are incorrigible,” he said, trying not to laugh.
Jesu!He was hard as iron. “What if you harmed yourself? Or the bairn?” He was putting her on her back as he spoke, pushing up her chemise as she pushed up his.
“It’s too early to be dangerous,” Adair told him. “Oh, hurry, hurry, my honey love! I am so hot for you tonight!” She drew him in close, wrapping her legs about him as he slowly entered her wet heat with a groan.
He shivered as his length sheathed itself within her.
Would he ever grow tired of this woman? Nay. He would not. No matter how many times he possessed her, each time they coupled was like the first time for him.
The excitement of pressing his manhood deep, of feeling her yielding to him—it always seemed new and different. He felt her tighten herself around him, and groaned again. “Witch,” he whispered into her perfumed black hair. “I love you!”
Adair let the sensations he engendered within her blossom and grow. She loved the feel of his thick length as he slowly, oh, so slowly sheathed himself within her.
Every fiber of her being seemed to meet in that single spot inside of her body. Liquid, fiery, honeyed heat engulfed her until she was burning up. She moaned his name. “Conal! Conal!” And then he began to piston her with long, measured strokes of his lover’s lance, and her head was thrashing wildly against the pillows as she whispered over and over again her love for him. Her head was spinning with the incredible pleasure he was giving her. She cried out, unable to help herself. Stars and moons swirled behind her closed eyes, and she flew until she could fly no more. It was then that she tumbled into a velvet darkness that seemed to reach up to enfold her in its warm and tender embrace.
